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MENENIUS:
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Why, then you should discover a brace of unmeriting,
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proud, violent, testy magistrates, alias fools, as
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any in Rome.
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SICINIUS:
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Menenius, you are known well enough too.
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MENENIUS:
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I am known to be a humorous patrician, and one that
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loves a cup of hot wine with not a drop of allaying
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Tiber in't; said to be something imperfect in
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favouring the first complaint; hasty and tinder-like
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upon too trivial motion; one that converses more
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with the buttock of the night than with the forehead
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of the morning: what I think I utter, and spend my
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malice in my breath. Meeting two such wealsmen as
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you are--I cannot call you Lycurguses--if the drink
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you give me touch my palate adversely, I make a
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crooked face at it. I can't say your worships have
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delivered the matter well, when I find the ass in
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compound with the major part of your syllables: and
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though I must be content to bear with those that say
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you are reverend grave men, yet they lie deadly that
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tell you you have good faces. If you see this in
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the map of my microcosm, follows it that I am known
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well enough too? what barm can your bisson
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conspectuities glean out of this character, if I be
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known well enough too?
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BRUTUS:
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Come, sir, come, we know you well enough.
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MENENIUS:
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You know neither me, yourselves nor any thing. You
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are ambitious for poor knaves' caps and legs: you
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wear out a good wholesome forenoon in hearing a
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cause between an orange wife and a fosset-seller;
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and then rejourn the controversy of three pence to a
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second day of audience. When you are hearing a
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matter between party and party, if you chance to be
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pinched with the colic, you make faces like
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mummers; set up the bloody flag against all
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patience; and, in roaring for a chamber-pot,
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dismiss the controversy bleeding the more entangled
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by your hearing: all the peace you make in their
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cause is, calling both the parties knaves. You are
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a pair of strange ones.
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BRUTUS:
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Come, come, you are well understood to be a
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perfecter giber for the table than a necessary
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bencher in the Capitol.
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MENENIUS:
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Our very priests must become mockers, if they shall
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encounter such ridiculous subjects as you are. When
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you speak best unto the purpose, it is not worth the
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wagging of your beards; and your beards deserve not
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so honourable a grave as to stuff a botcher's
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cushion, or to be entombed in an ass's pack-
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saddle. Yet you must be saying, Marcius is proud;
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who in a cheap estimation, is worth predecessors
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since Deucalion, though peradventure some of the
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best of 'em were hereditary hangmen. God-den to
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your worships: more of your conversation would
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infect my brain, being the herdsmen of the beastly
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plebeians: I will be bold to take my leave of you.
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How now, my as fair as noble ladies,--and the moon,
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were she earthly, no nobler,--whither do you follow
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your eyes so fast?
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VOLUMNIA:
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Honourable Menenius, my boy Marcius approaches; for
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the love of Juno, let's go.
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MENENIUS:
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Ha! Marcius coming home!
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VOLUMNIA:
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Ay, worthy Menenius; and with most prosperous
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approbation.
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MENENIUS:
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Take my cap, Jupiter, and I thank thee. Hoo!
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Marcius coming home!
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VOLUMNIA:
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Nay,'tis true.
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VOLUMNIA:
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Look, here's a letter from him: the state hath
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another, his wife another; and, I think, there's one
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at home for you.
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MENENIUS:
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I will make my very house reel tonight: a letter for
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me!
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